This weekend was nice. We didn’t have anything scheduled for once in a long time. So we took care of a few things, did all the laundry, did the dishes, went grocery shopping. You know the usual, normal domestic things. Not remodeling a house, not writing up leases, not going to various events and activities.
After that we even had time to cook a nice meal! We made stuffed bell peppers with things like tomatoes, basil, peppers from our garden. We don’t use a recipe, but just by heart here’s how we make them.
The finished result
Cook some ground beef/turkey (about a lb)
Boil your bell peppers until soft
Cook some rice
Add some tomatoes (I also put a can of diced tomatoes and some tomato paste), spicy peppers, cut up bell peppers, garlic, fresh basil, italian seasoning, salt, pepper, turmeric, etc to the beef mixture.
Add in the rice
Shred some cheese into the warm mixture
Fill the bell peppers with the mixture.
Place in the oven for about 20 minutes on 350 degrees with foil over top.
Add some more shredded cheese to the top for extra yumminess when they come out.
You can put the bell pepper tops on for a decorative effect, if you want.
It’s one of our favorites, if a little time consuming.
We also went for a couple walks and a bike ride. It was a great, relaxing weekend.
Last night we decided to go to the Greeley Moonlight Bike Ride sponsored and put on by the Greeley Police Officers’ Association. Registration was at 8:30pm and the ride was to start at 9pm. Unfortunately for us, we are now on the chickens’ schedule because we have to lock them up at night to protect them from attack which means we had to wait for them to go in their coop at dusk. When they finally put themselves to bed, we closed them up and were on our way to the Greeley Police Station on bikes.
On my bike on our way there
The Police Station is only probably about 1-2 miles from our house, so we were there in short order. They had an acoustic guitar band called Girls with Guitars playing when we arrived. We signed in, grabbed a free snack and enjoyed the music.
We had encouraged our friends Matt and Jamie (and their daughter Hailee) to come, but didn’t think they would. They surprised us by showing!
Matt and Britton at Starbucks
Me and Jamie with Police Car
The whole event is free and sponsored by area businesses in addition to the Greeley Police Department. They said they’ve been doing it for 16 years! How did we miss this all the years before? The police rode with us and police cars blocked off whole streets as we rode.
This is route- about 12 miles round trip
We rode from the police station on 10th Street went east on 8th Street, rode past downtown, rode up through UNC’s campus and Reservoir Rd, through Sanborn Park where boy scouts had set up luminaries down the path. It was really cool because they glowed as we rode past the lake. Then we stopped at the Starbucks in Westlake Plaza where they served us free drinks. That was our half-way point. At this point we could see how many people came out by the sheer number of bikes!
And of course, all the people. Here they (we) are waiting for them to call out the door prizes of which Britton won one!
Police guy is on the table yelling out prizes
From there we rode up 20th Street to near 47th Ave and then turned into a neighborhood near 16th Street, rode through Bittersweet Park where the sprinklers were on! Everyone got soaked, it was pretty cool. Then we headed back in a round about way to the police station. I was amazed at the number of people who crashed going that slow. It was kind of funny once you knew they were ok. Now I know why they wanted everyone to have a helmet and light on their bike although they didn’t turn anyone away if they didn’t have either.
Once we were back at the police station they had free sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and drinks from a company called Oogave. They gave out a few more prizes and showed some biking clips on the big movie screen -a bike-in movie! We said goodbye to Matt and Jamie and headed back home by about midnight. And yes, the chickens were sleeping safe and sound.
We don’t usually go to the parade because I like to sleep in on the weekends, but we figured since it was the last free event associated with the Greeley Stampede (see earlier post about the Stampede charging admission), we’d ride our bikes down and check it out. It is the Greeley 4th of July Parade, even though it was actually on the 3rd of July.
Us at the parade. (These pics holding out your hand and clicking are hard to take!)
It was pretty fun. We saw old vehicles like horse and buggies, old fire engines, even a covered wagon. We saw all the political figures (congresspeople, city council members, etc), police, and military. We heard music from marching bands and noisy trucks honking. There were over a thousand people! We even saw a bunch of longhorn cattle walk through downtown Greeley! Not something you see every day, for sure. Apparently Britton’s sister, our niece and nephew were on one of the floats, but we didn’t know it. We even rode down 10th Ave on our bikes just before the parade began…It was like we were in the parade with everyone watching us. We should have had a sign that said Go to Lifetransplanet.com! lol…
It was cool to see so much of the city come together from all sorts of segments and organizations. But what if the Stampede charged to get into the parade? Could they? Well, the Stampede runs it, and they apparently can charge to get into a public park (at least it’s public the rest of the year). But the philosophical question is, does it belong solely to them? Or does this parade, and the Stampede celebration as a whole, really belong to the community? Just food for thought…
Here are a few more pictures and a video of the fun.
With my bike, and look at the crowd!
Check out those horns!
An old hearse
Square dancing -it seems this would be tough to do on a moving trailer!
Britton took this video while we rode our bikes just before the parade started. Lots of peeps
I love Bike to Work Day. I think it is one of the best events. It encourages alternative transportation to get us out of our cars and other oil-powered vehicles, it is a fun exercise, and it connects your work life with your personal life. In the Greeley area, on a warm Wednesday in June there are a variety of breakfast stations set up all around town. You can go to one, or all of them.
Flyer of Locations
Britton and I live on the outskirts of town a little bit, so there were no stations on my way to work. So I arranged with one of my co-workers to meet up at the downtown one. It is about 2-3 miles from home, so not too bad. We had free bagels from Einstein’s Bagels and coffee, grabbed a free frisbee and were on our way to work.
With some co-workers who rode today
Britton would have liked riding to work, but since he works in Longmont, it’s a much harder ride (45 miles) with a freeway in between! I do need to start riding to work more since I only live about 2 miles away. The summer that we had really high gas prices, I was riding about 4 times a week! Price really does influence people’s behavior!
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